A. “Why, Peter, it appears that your master was not only cruel, but mean.”
P. “Mean? I guess he was, why, I’ll tell you a story, and when I git to the end on it, you’ll see what mean, means:—
“We lived near the Lake, and master had a fine sail boat that cost a good deal of money, and the young folks round there, that felt pretty smart, used to sail out in it now and then, and I was captain. One day there comes four couples, and they wanted to sail out on the Lake with our gals, and so out we went. Susan Tucker, one of the gals, was a high-lived thing, and the calkalation was, to go down about three miles, and the wind was quarterin’ on the larboard side. Well, as I sat on the starn of the boat, she comes, and sets down on the gunnel, and I says, ‘Susan, that ain’t a very fit place for you to set;’ for the wind was kind a bafflin’. She replies, ‘I guess there ain’t any danger,’ and she’d no sooner got the words out of her mouth, than there come a sudden flaw in the wind, and that made the main boom jibe, and it struck her overboard, and on we went, for we had a considerable headway,—well, I let up into the wind, and hollered out, ‘ain’t any body a goin’ to help?’ and there set her suitor scart to death, and all the rest on ’em. Well, I off with all my rags but my pantaloons, and I kept them on out of modesty till the last thing, and then I slipped out on ’em, like a black snake out of his skin, and put out. I swam, I guess, ten rods, and come to where the blubbers come up, and lay on my face, and looked down into the water to see when she come up; and pretty soon I see her a comin’, and she come up within a foot I guess of the top, some distance from me, and sallied away agin. I keep on the look out, and pretty soon she comes up agin, and as soon as I see, I dove for her, and went down I guess six feet; and my plan was to catch her round the neck, and when I did, she seized her left arm round my right shoulder, and hung tight. I fetched a sudden twist, and brought her across my back, and riz up to the top of the water, and started for the shore, and I had one arm and two legs to work with, and she grew heavier and heavier, and I looked to the shore with watery eyes, I tell you. Finally I got all beat out, and my stomach was filled with water, and I thought I must give up. Well, while I stood there a treadin’ water a minute, I thinks I’d better save myself and let her go, and so not both be drowned. I hated to, but I shook her off my back, and she hung tight to my shoulder, and that brought me on my side; and I kept one arm a goin’ to keep us up, and cast my eyes ashore, and gin up that we must go down, and jist that minute a young man come swimmin’ along, and sings out, ‘Pete, where is she?’ and I answers, as well as I could, for I was now a sinkin’, and she was out of sight of him, and says, ‘under me,’ and he dove, and catched her under his arm, and with such force, it broke her loose from me, and off he put for the shore; and I gin up that I must sink, and so down I begins to go, and I recollect I felt kind a happy that Susan was safe, if I was a goin’ to die, for I loved her, and jist then another man come along, and hollers out, ‘Pete, give me hold of your hand.’ I couldn’t speak, but I hears him, and I knew ’nough to reach out my hand, and he took hold on it, and by some means, or other, foucht me on to his back out of the water, and finally got me safe ashore: and sure ’nough, there we all was, and the first thing I knew, he run his finger down my throat, and that made me fling up Jonah, and when I had hove up ’bout a gallon of water, I begins to feel like Peter agin, and I sees I was as naked as an eel, and I set still in the sand. Well, I looked out on the Lake, and there was the boat, and this feller, Susan’s suitor, was a rale goslin’, and so scart, that he couldn’t even jump into the water arter his lady love; and there she was a rockin’ in the troughs, (i.e. the boat,) and one of these same young men that came out arter us, swum out for her, and catched hold of her bow chain, and towed her ashore; and I gits my clothes out, for up to this time I felt egregious streaked, all stark naked there, and I on with my clothes, and goes to Susan, and she was a comin’ tu, and as soon as she could speak, she says, ‘where’s Peter?’ I says, ‘I’m here, Miss Susan;’ and she says, ‘and so am I, and if it hadn’t a been for you, I should have been in the bottom of that Lake.” And while we was a talkin’ there, who should come up but her father, and he says, ‘my dear child how happened all this?’
“‘Pa,’ says she, ‘it all happened through my carelessness; Peter warned me of my danger, but I didn’t mind him, and I fell off.’
“‘Who saved you out of the water?’ says Mr. Tucker; ‘that poor black boy there, that’s whipped and starved and abused so,’ says Susan; then she turns round to me, still cryin,’ and says ‘Peter, have you hurt you much, my dear fellow?”
“‘No, not much, I guess, Miss Susan,’ says I. Mr. Tucker then says, ‘come darter, can you walk as fur as the carriage?’
“‘Yes, Sir,’ says she, ‘and Peter must go along with us, tu—come Peter, come along up to our house.’ ‘Yes, Peter, come along,’ says Mr. Tucker, a cryin’. ‘Yes, Sir,’ says I, as soon ever as I’ve locked the boat;’ and he says, ‘if you’ll run, I’ll wait for you.’ Well, I did run, and lock the boat, and put the key in my pocket, and come back to the carriage, and says he, ‘Git in, Peter.’
“‘No, Sir,’ says I, ‘I’ll walk.’
“‘Oh! Pa,’ says Susan, ‘have Peter git in, I want him with us;’ and, finally, I got in, and then Mr. Tucker drives on up to his house. When we got opposite master’s, Mr. Tucker calls out to him, and says, ‘I want to take your boy up to my house a leetle while;’ and he hollered out ‘what’s the matter?’ So Mr. Tucker tells him all ’bout it; and says he,
“‘Nigger, where’s the boat?’